"Wide" variation in UK needle services

PUB. DATE

February 2009

SOURCE

Community Care;2/26/2009, Issue 1759, p10

SOURCE TYPE

Periodical

DOC. TYPE

Article

ABSTRACT

The article focuses on the warning by Great Britain's National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice), that access to needle services for intravenous drug users "varies widely" across the nation. Nice guidance published, championed the role of needle and syringe programmes as crucial in tackling the spread of diseases such as hepatitis C and HIV among the country's estimated 150,000-200,000 injecting drug users.

Background. In studies of hepatitis C virus (HCV) seroconversion in injection drug users (IDUs), some have questioned whether underreporting of syringe sharing, a stigmatized behavior, has led to misattribution of HCV risk to other injection-related behaviors. Methods. IDUs aged 15-30 years who...

Background and purpose: Iran has a notable rank in the world with 300 thousand injecting drug users (IDUs) among 3.5 million drug users. Infections of IDUs have brought about various challenges to physicians. Thus, this study aims at studying the infections related to injection drug abuse in the...

The article reports on the draft guidance issued by the Great Britain National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) as of July 2013. NICE recommended the use of both peginterferon-alpha-2a (Pegasys) and peginterferon-alpha-2b (Viraferon Peg) for the treatment of children with...

The authors reflect on treatment for patients with chronic hepatitis C infections. A set of guidelines from the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) in Great Britain is discussed. According to the authors, although antiviral therapy is approved by NICE, not many patients...

The article reports on the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence's draft guidance recommending several drugs for treatments of various diseases in Great Britain as of August 2014. Topics discussed include sofosbuvir as treatment for chronic hepatitis C, the use of fluorouracil...

The article offers information on positive guidance for a number of treatments published by the British National Institute for Health and Excellence (NICE) in March 2012. It has recommended dabigatran etexilate as a treatment for the prevention of systemic thromboembolism and stroke in patients...

The article reports on the recommendations from Great Britain's National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) on the use of drugs for the treatment of children and adolescents with hepatitis C and the use of a simple faecal test to distinguish between potentially serious bowel diseases.

The article reports on the draft guidance published by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) in Great Britain which recommends daclatasvir, ledipasvir/sofosbuvir, and ombitasvir/paritaprevir/ ritonavir for the treatment of chronic hepatitis C (HCV) virus infection in adults.

HIV infection is the strongest single risk factor for the development of active TB in latently infected individuals. NICE and BHIVA 2011 guidelines both recommend screening for latent TB in HIV positive subjects in the UK. NICE bases this on blood CD4 count; and recommends testing all patients...